Trading Statement

RNS Number : 6693N

Whitbread PLC

06 September 2011

 



6th September 2011

WHITBREAD TRADING UPDATE

Whitbread delivers 12.9% sales growth in 2^nd quarter

Whitbread PLC, the UK's largest hotel and restaurant group, today reports its trading performance to 18 August 2011.

Sales update (% change vs. prior year)

	Sales for the 11 weeks to 18 August 2011		Sales for the 24 weeks to 18 August 2011
	Like for like sales*¹	Total sales	Like for like sales*¹	Total sales
Premier Inn	7.1%	12.5%	5.0%	10.3%
Restaurants	(1.6%)	0. 7%	(1.5)%	0.4%
Hotels and Restaurants	3.7%	7.9%	2.3%	6.3%
Costa*²	9.7%	28.8%	6.6%	25.4%
Total	4.8%	12.9%	3.2%	11.0%

*¹ Premier Inn: UK and Ireland only. Costa and Restaurants: UK only.

*² Pre IFRIC 13 adjustment.  Post IFRIC 13 for the 24 weeks to 18 August 2011 like for like sales would be 0.8% higher and total sales 0.9% higher.

Andy Harrison, Chief Executive of Whitbread comments:

"Whitbread traded strongly in the second quarter with total sales growth of 12.9%, making us one of the fastest growing consumer facing companies in the FTSE100.  This growth, combined with a strong like for like sales increase of 4.8%, underscores our shareholder value creation and exciting future growth potential.

Premier Inn grew its total sales by 12.5% and its like for like sales by 7.1%, with growth across the country and a strong London market. Trading in our Restaurants continues to be challenging, with customers being particularly price sensitive. Costa grew its total sales by 28.8% and continues to demonstrate that it is the UK's favourite coffee shop.  We have now opened our 100^th Costa store in China.

We have traded well in the first 24 weeks as a whole.  On a month by month basis, trading continues to be variable with the second quarter benefitting from a strong June, whilst the first quarter was held back by a poor April.  This variability is not surprising in the continuing uncertain economic environment.

Trading highlights for the 24 weeks:

Hotels and Restaurants

·     Premier Inn continues to win share of the hotel market with total room nights sold growing by 6.6% to 5.7 million benefitting from both good business and leisure demand.

·     Room rate was up by 3.4%, which combined with occupancy up 0.7ppts to 79.2%, increased like for like revpar by 4.3% with growth across both midweek and the weekend.

·     Like for like revpar grew by 11.4% in London and by 2.9% in the provinces.

·     Restaurants delivered total covers growth of 0.8%.

·     1,368 new rooms and 5 restaurants opened and for the full year we plan to have opened around 4,000 new rooms and 14 restaurants in the UK.

Costa

·    Costa continued to deliver a strong performance growing total system sales by 22.8% to £351.3 million within which franchise sales were up 16.5% to £146.5 million.

·    Like for like sales in UK equity stores were up 6.6% with transactions up 6.9%.

·    Costa opened 145 new stores in the first 24 weeks. In 2011/12 we will add approximately 300 stores worldwide.

·    The launch of Costa Express is progressing well. In the UK there are now 155 Costa Express units and we are proceeding with the rebranding of the remaining 760 Coffee Nation units.

Group

·    Whitbread retains a strong balance sheet capable of funding future growth.  The programme to renew our borrowing facilities and diversify sources and maturities of debt continues.

·    We have now completed the sale and leaseback of seven properties announced on 11 August. LaSalle Investment Management have paid £53.8 million in cash and entered into 25 year leases for the properties, which will continue to operate as Premier Inns and adjacent restaurants.  The net initial yield is under 5.5%

·    We have also announced today (please see separate announcement) our second successful debt private placement, raising £156.4 million of seven and ten year money at rates between 4.3% and 5.2%. 

Notes:

Site detail	4 March 2011	Opened	Closed/ transferred	18 August 2011
Premier Inn UK	43,219	1,225	-	44,444
Premier Inn Int'l	1,076	143	(9)	1,210
Total Premier Inn (rooms)	44,295	1,368	(9)	45,654
Restaurants (sites)	379	5	(1)	383
Costa UK     Equity	736	45	(6)	775
Franchise	481	42	(3)	520
Total Costa UK (stores)	1,217	87	(9)	1,295
Costa Int'l   Equity	86	8	-	94
JV (1)	114	20	(7)	127
Franchise	454	30	(14)	470
Total Costa Int'l (stores)	654	58	(21)	691
Total Costa (stores)	1,871	145	(30)	1,986

(1) International JV includes Shanghai which is a subsidiary with a 51% interest.  At the year end this was also disclosed in International JV

Conference call for analysts and investors

Andy Harrison and Christopher Rogers will be available for a conference call at 8.00am today.  To participate, dial 0800 694 0257 and enter Conference ID: 94127153.

A recording of the conference call will be available until the 13th September 2011.  To listen, dial 0800 953 1533 and enter the passcode 94127153#.  This service will be active approximately two hours after the conference call has finished.

Please dial into the call ten minutes before to ensure you don't miss the start.

For more information please contact:

Investor Relations

Christopher Rogers, Whitbread PLC          [phone]

Press Contacts

Anna Glover, Whitbread PLC                    [phone]

David Allchurch, Tulchan                         [phone]

For photographs and video please visit our media library on www.whitbreadimages.co.uk

Notes to Editors

Whitbread PLC is the UK's largest hotel and restaurant group operating market-leading businesses in budget hotels, restaurants and coffee shops.  Its well-loved brands are Premier Inn, Beefeater, Brewers Fayre, Table Table, Taybarns and Costa.

Whitbread PLC employs over 40,000 people globally and serves over 10 million customers every month in over 2,000 outlets across the UK.

Whitbread has outlined five-year growth milestones (to 2015/16) to increase the number of Premier Inn UK rooms by nearly 50% to at least 65,000, add 80-100 new Restaurants and to nearly double the size of Costa with global system sales of £1.3bn and 3,500 stores worldwide.

In the year ended 3 March 2011, Whitbread PLC reported a 11.5% increase in Group Revenue to £1,599.6 million and Underlying Profit before tax of £287.1 million up 20.1%.

Whitbread PLC is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 100. It is also a member of the FTSE4Good Index.

 

END

 

 

TSTLAMRTMBTMBTB